From what I hear…Gall Bladder pain is the worst. Stabbing, intense, shooting pains on the right upper side of the stomach area – OUCH! This can be a very painful organ when dysfunctional. When it is working well, it provides us a valuable service that helps with an important part or our digestion.
When we eat fats, the fats must become “emulsified.” That means the fats must be able to be suspended with the other foods in the digestive track – and not stay separated, as fats like to do. The Gall Bladder helps with this, as it concentrates the substance that does the emulsifying – the bile, which is produced in the liver. The Galls Bladder is nothing but a sack that holds the concentrated bile until it is needed for digestion. It concentrates the bile 1000 to 1 – amazing! So, when we need to get the fats ready for digestion – the gall constricts and squirts the bile into the digestive system through the common bile duct, and then we can “emulsify” our fats and gain the energy from them.
People who have dysfunctional gall bladder often have pain in the stomach on the right upper side. A pre-cursor to the intense pain might be intense bloating after eating, followed by loose stools, or bowel movements, and chronic diarreah. That is because if we can’t “emulsify” the fats we eat. There is irritation through the digestive tract and the fats are simply eliminated by the body in a watery stool. Look at your stool after a bowel movement, and you will see fats not emulsified – interesting!
Fats are very important to us….they provide great amounts of energy, relatively easy to glean from the foods we eat, if these fats can be emulsified. Ask anyone who has Gall Bladder issues and they will report chronic fatigue, brittle and thin hair, and have an emotional state of never being able to get everything done they want to, or need to. They can rest well at night, take a long nap in the day, and still be extremely fatigued.
If you think your gall bladder is having issues, it would be worth it to try out visceral manipulation at Eagle Rock Physical Therapy. Therapy can be a good alternative to a surgery, and if therapy doesn’t work, you can always have the surgery. Remember – you can never undo a surgery.